Syncing a Zaurus SL-5600 to a Debian GNU/Linux Box


I have a Zaurus SL-5600, Sharp changed the format of the PIM applications, so rather than the data being available in the rather handy XML format, it's in it's own format, for which decent information seems pretty lacking! If you are fortunate enough to be running alternative operating systems the Qtopia software works fine ...

It appears nobody has been able to tackle the data format issue, however the kind folks at the Opie project have made available some of the applications for machines running the Sharp ROM. I decided to go down this route.

Getting the Packages

I grabbed: http://opie.handhelds.org/feed/sharprom/stable/latest/libopie1_1.0.3_arm.ipk http://opie.handhelds.org/feed/sharprom/stable/latest/opie-addressbook_1.0.3_arm.ipk http://opie.handhelds.org/feed/sharprom/stable/latest/opie-datebook_1.0.3_arm.ipk http://opie.handhelds.org/feed/sharprom/stable/latest/opie-pics_1.0.3_arm.ipk http://opie.handhelds.org/feed/sharprom/stable/latest/opie-today_1.0.3_arm.ipk http://opie.handhelds.org/feed/sharprom/stable/latest/opie-today-addressbookplugin_1.0.3_arm.ipk http://opie.handhelds.org/feed/sharprom/stable/latest/opie-today-datebookplugin_1.0.3_arm.ipk http://opie.handhelds.org/feed/sharprom/stable/latest/opie-today-todolistplugin_1.0.3_arm.ipk http://opie.handhelds.org/feed/sharprom/stable/latest/opie-todo_1.0.3_arm.ipk I then scp'd them over: scp ~awr/*.ipk 192.168.129.201:/mnt/cf Then using the 'Add/Remove Software' applet, installed the applications. They work in place of the Sharp supplied ones. The 'Today' .ipk's are not really necessary, I just like the application.

The XML for the applications can be found in:

/home/zaurus/Applications/datebook/datebook.xml /home/zaurus/Applications/todolist/templates.xml /home/zaurus/Applications/todolist/todolist.xml /home/zaurus/Applications/addressbook/addressbook.xml /home/zaurus/Settings/Categories.xml I shall leave it as an excercise for the reader to decide what to do with the .xml files, your Zaurus is now providing the same sort of data that a generic SL-5500 does.